The ALPB2 would run a shortened season for players looking to get into professional baseball.

York, PA - It's not a new idea. Atlantic League founder and CEO Frank Boulton has expressed an interest in creating another independent league before.

"It's been on my drawing board for awhile," Frank Boulton said this week.

Unlike prior years, though, he's moving toward laying out the framework for a short-season league that would feature younger ballplayers than the veteran Atlantic League. And he's no longer just sitting at the drawing board.

"I'm sharpening my pencil," Boulton said with a laugh.

The proposed league will be called ALPB2, a tip of the hat to Boulton's Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.

Boulton would like to see the Northeast-based ALPB2 up and running in 2014, and the new league will be a topic of discussion when Atlantic League officials and owners meet later this month.

"It could be a feeder system for the Atlantic League, but not exclusively," Boulton said.

Boulton envisions the best players in ALPB2 earning call-ups to the Atlantic League. He also envisions players being signed by major league organizations directly out of ALPB2.

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Although linked to the Atlantic League brand, ALPB2 will have a different business model and different rules when it comes to team building. Boulton does not expect the short-season league to go into markets and build Atlantic League-style ballparks. The new league will cater to markets that have recently lost their teams. He expects the league will need to improve ballparks and playing fields, and succeed where other teams have failed.

New Jersey's Atlantic City will be considered for the new league, The Press of Atlantic City reported last month.

Boulton also expects to implement age restrictions. In this respect, ALPB2 sounds similar to the Frontier League, an independent league that operates largely in the Midwest and includes two teams in western Pennsylvania: the Washington Wild Things and Lake Erie Crushers.

But there is a reason ALPB2 is gathering momentum now: Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement limited the draft to 40 rounds this season.

For some perspective, former York Revolution pitcher Travis Phelps was drafted in the 89th round in 1996. He went on to carve out a 13-year professional career, including three seasons in the major leagues. Players like Phelps could now go undrafted and unnoticed unless independent professional leagues make an effort to sign these types of players.

Boulton watched this season as certain players that he thought would be drafted remain unsigned after the June First-Year Player Draft. He signed one of those players, Matt Fleishman out of Villanova, to play for the Long Island Ducks. Fleishman batted .238 in 17 games.

"He's a prime example," Boulton said. "Is he ready for the Atlantic League now? No."

But he could be in a couple years.

ALPB2 aims to give him, and players like him, an opportunity to break into professional baseball.